


If I am a Princess in Rags and Tatters

by screaminginternally



Series: 'i'm in love with my princess. And i'm enquiring if she loves me too' [2]
Category: The Princess Diaries - All Media Types
Genre: AU where Mia knew she was a princess before she was a princess, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Female Friendship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Mia also has some self-awareness self-esteem and social competence, Mia is Tired, book rewrite, book-movie fusion, but some, minor michael moscovitz/mia thermopalis, no beta i'll die like a fool, not much mind you, why is this so big? this was never the plan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-05-20 01:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19367329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screaminginternally/pseuds/screaminginternally
Summary: Mia had lived comfortably with the information that A) her father is a prince, and B) at no point in her future would she have to deal with this in her day-to-day life.Granted, the thought did cross her mind when the doctors confirmed her Dad had cancer, but his reassurances that he wasn’t going to die of it, that it was treatable, made Mia put it out of her head. But now – now the whole royalty thing was going to be a Thing for her, wasn’t it?Ugh.(book 1 rewrite)





	1. Whatever comes cannot alter one thing: if I am a princess in rags and tatters

So, for the last year, Mia had lived comfortably with the information that A) her father is a prince, and B) at no point in her future would she have to deal with this in her day-to-day life. Granted, the thought did cross her mind when the doctors confirmed her Dad had cancer, but his reassurances that he wasn’t going to die of it, that it was treatable, made Mia put it out of her head. But now – now the whole royalty thing was going to be a Thing for her, wasn’t it?

Her Dad wasn’t married, as far as she knew, Mia was his only kid – unless something was seriously up, she was a princess. _Please god no. DO NOT WANT._

Maybe if she kept her fingers crossed and wished really hard, there’d turn out to be some secret back-up heir who’d get the throne after her Dad.

Oh wait. _Mia_ was the secret back-up heir, wasn’t she?

UGGGHHH.

Well, Mia was just gonna play dumb until and unless her father told her so himself.  No sir was she gonna ruin her own life just yet.

Besides, she had her own problems, what with her mother dating the teacher of the Algebra class Mia was failing SO HARD she had to stay behind from school _every day_ in an attempt to raise her grade; her body basically ignoring the fact that Mia has definitely hit puberty, and just generally dealing with Lilly and her TV show, as well as other school stuff in general. Mia doesn’t need a new princesshood to make her – admittedly really bad – hair go grey before the age of twenty.

But still, she played stupid and asked her mother, “Why does Dad have to fly all the way over here to talk to me about he can’t have kids?” mostly because she wanted to gauge the situation annnd – her mother’s reaction confirmed it. No amount of crossing fingers and wishing on stars was gonna save her here.

Crap. Mia’s a princess.

 

;

 

Venting to Nick was the obvious reaction – he’d have an answer about how to handle this situation. It was something Mia’d always admired about him, that Nick always seemed to know how to handle everything.

 **FtLouie:** Did you ever think that the thing you warned me about last year would actually be something that would actually effect me?

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** I’d considered it, but it’d always seemed less than likely. Your dad’s cancer wasn’t a secret. I figured there was a _chance_ , but thought we could burn that bridge when we got to it.

Nick’s screen name was a quote from the Jane Austen book _Persuasion_ , one of his favourites. All of Austen’s works were actually his favourite – Mia hadn’t actually read any of them, she’d tried, but the language was too dense for her. Nick had made her promise she’d try again in a few years and see if she’d like them then – she’d liked the movies of the books though, so at least she’d understood some of his references.

 **FtLouie:** We’ve gotten to it. What am I going to do???

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** You’re going to be a princess. Get used to it, because this isn’t going anywhere, and there’s no escaping it. You have my deepest sympathy.

 **FtLouie:** You’re a lord.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** A lord who was raised to be one. Before now, at most you could’ve been raised to Lady, or Duchess. You’re being thrown right into the deep end. Do you think you know how to swim?

 **FtLouie:** Maybe not. Maybe there’s another heir.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Yeah, your second or third cousin or something. But he’s a fashion designer – I’ve met him, and let me tell you, no one in Genovian government wants that guy running the show. It’s your dad, and now it’s gonna be you. Your fate is sealed. See you in Genovia when they drag you over here.

 **FtLouie:** No way am I moving.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** What, you think they’ll let the crown princess and heir to the throne grow up and be educated in ANOTHER COUNTRY without any education about her future job?

 **FtLouie:** I can learn here. New York is the best city on the planet.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** 14th biggest population, 1st biggest ego. If you’re not coming here, then your Grandmother is probably gonna come to you. Dowager Princesses are historically the teachers of the female heirs for their roles in the Genovian court.

 **FtLouie:** 1) She’s in France, 2) Dad hasn’t even gotten here yet, I don’t know the full situation, and 3) even if Grandmere comes to NYC, that means I can escape her.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** We’ll see about that. Good luck, Princess :p

 

;

 

“Lilly, my dad’s coming into town for a bit.”

“Why? It’s not your birthday, or your mom’s, and unless he actually just want to yell at you in person about your Algebra grade-” Lilly’s face was all scrunched up as she tried to read the Spanish-written signs on the subway.

“He wants to talk to me about this whole infertility thing, I guess. It’s probably a shift in perspective for him or something.” Mia was twitchy, and trying to hide it. She drummed her fingers on the subway pole she was holding for balance.

“Well that’s telling. He’s probably got unresolved issues with his parents, if he’s concerned about being a parent himself.”

“ _Duh_. Grandmere is a _huge_ pain in the ass.” And if Nick’s foreboding IM was accurate, she’d end up being an even bigger pain in Mia’s.

Lilly cocked an eyebrow at Mia. “Well, I can’t comment on that, given that I’ve never met your grandmother. I wonder if your father is afraid of losing his youth. My mom says that many men equate losing their virility with losing youth.”

“I wouldn’t know about any of that. I’m just irritated that he’s going to be staying at the Plaza. I hate having to go there; the staff seems to have a vendetta against me. Last time I was there, they wouldn’t even let me in the door because I was wearing shorts, and it literally took me calling my dad from the concierge to even get in past the lobby. I’m going to see him tomorrow.”

“Well, maybe this just means he’s going to spend more time with you, if he’s re-assessing his whole existence as a parent post- _this_.”

Mia had a gut feeling Lilly was right. Just probably not for the reasons Lilly was probably thinking.

 

;

 

As per Mia’s prediction about the Plaza, she was held at the entrance by the doorman despite the fact she was wearing her school skirt instead of shorts, probably because the uniform made it clear she was a minor. It took Mia waving over the attention of the concierge and spitting out her father’s name for them to let her in. Perks of royalty, maybe.

Meeting her dad at the Palm Court was something she’d always enjoyed doing as a kid, because the atmosphere and food always made Mia feel fancy, like a princess being doted on in a palace. The irony was not lost on her. Her dad looked . . . maybe not nervous, but uneasy when he saw her, but he hid it well enough to give Mia a hug before sitting down.

The standard conversation minuate occurred, and Phillipe started in on the conversation Mia had been expecting for about three days. “Mia, I want you to know the truth. I think you’re old enough now, and the fact is, now that I can’t have any more children, this will have a tremendous impact on your life, and it’s only fair I tell you. I am the Prince of Genovia.”

Mia just sipped some tea, keeping her eyes wide and face unsuspecting. Like she had no idea what he was saying. Like this was completely new information. “So . . . I’m a princess now? Because I’m your only kid?”

“Ah – yes.” Phillipe nodded. “Your mother and I agreed when you were born that a palace is no place to raise a child – as my own upbringing can attest. Of course, I wasn’t expecting her to raise you in an artist’s loft in Greenwich Village, but I will admit that it doesn’t seem to have done you any harm. In fact, I think growing up in New York City has instilled you with a healthy amount of scepticism about the human race at large – something that never hurts to have. What I’m trying to say is, your mother and I thought that by not telling you, we were doing you a favour. We’d never envisioned that you might actually be required to succeed me to the throne. But . . . well, you’re right, honey. You are the heir to the throne of Genovia.”

Mia just sat in silence, letting her expression tell it all. Uncomfortable and pretty far from happy.

“Mia, I’m sorry. Honey, you’ll be able to make something out of your life despite this. You can come back to New York and visit your mother and friends as often as you want, but, honey –“

Mia cut him off, her expression immediately changing to a scowl. “No way Dad! I’m not moving to Genovia or whatever you’re about to say. I’m staying in New York. End of story.”

“Mia –“

“No! No way! I can’t! I won’t! First of all, I’m only _decent_ at French, and mostly only when Grandmere’s the one speaking. It’s why I only average a B in French class. I’m not _moving_ my entire life to a country where I don’t speak the language well, where people are going to judge me for my accent when I know that European people don’t like Americans very much – and, what, am I supposed to leave Mum and Fat Louie and all my friends behind? No!” Mia was speaking quickly, all her attention being paid to making sure her father understood that No Way Was She Moving. She was getting angry.

“Mia, sweetheart, you have to understand –“ Phillipe was gaping like a fish. Mia was probably giving away her position of the situation – maybe her dad was realising that Mia was more aware and prepared for this argument than he was.

But Mia’s preparation for the argument didn’t mean she wasn’t as upset as she would have been without her fore-knowledge. Tears had formed in her eyes and were starting to drip down her face.

“What I _understand_ is that you and Mum have LIED to me my entire life, and the ONLY reason that you’re telling me the truth NOW is because it’s become _necessary_ to YOU. At NO POINT did you even think that my DAD being _royalty_ was something I might need to know before now, and your way of telling me all of it is by also announcing that I have to _move across the planet to another continent_ so I can be of _use_ to _you_. Instead of being HAPPY at the home and city and country where I’ve spent my ENTIRE LIFE. No. No WAY.”

And, well, with that last word, Mia threw herself out of her chair, snatched up her schoolbag and raced out of the building – and her long legs meant that she was out all the doors of the Plaza and on the street before Phillipe was able to leave the Palm Court.

Mia sprinted down the busy street, dodging people on the sidewalk and only barely managing that. She threw herself down the entrance to the subway system, knowing that she’d get home before her mother arrived back from her studio, no matter how frantic her father was when he undoubtedly did call her.

 

;

 

Barricading herself in her bedroom wasn’t difficult – some quick snagging of food from the kitchen, plus some for Fat Louie, a brimming water bottle, and a chair wedged under the door handle so it couldn’t be opened from the outside, and she was untouchable. Her mother wasn’t home before Mia’d gotten there, but there was no way Mia was coming out of her room.  She had her cat, her things, a private bathroom, and a computer she immediately turned on to contact the only person in her life that could possibly understand what was going on in her life right now without needing two hours of explanations.

 **FtLouie:** So the thing happened.

 **FtLouie:** It was a disaster.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** It’s 10 at night right now for me. What, did your dad pull you straight out of your school?

 **FtLouie:** I have math review after school for an hour every day. I met with Dad after. Can you FOCUS please?

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** On what? Your dad is a prince. You’re a princess. This is going to affect you for the rest of your life, and therefore it will be that much harder. Welcome to the world of being a Young Aristocrat. It sucks.

 **FtLouie:** What am I going to do? Dad told me that he was a prince, and then immediately announced that I have to MOVE to GENOVIA.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Told you so.

 **FtLouie:** You’re being very unsympathetic. I don’t want to move!!!

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** One upside: you’d see me a lot more.

His light sarcasm radiated through Mia’s computer screen.

 **FtLouie:** OK, true. It would be cool. BUT, one downside: I’d be living full-time with GRANDMERE!!!!

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Fair.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Look, you can talk your dad around to your side. He loves you. He wants this to be something that will work. But you have to compromise with that. You can’t sit around complaining that you have to be a princess, even when it sucks (and it will!), otherwise you’re just going to be miserable. This all sucks, but you have to own it. Tell your friends.

 **FtLouie:** How??? I can’t tell my friends!! Lilly’s anti-royal! She’d NEVER understand!!

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Maybe not. But would you rather have no one to talk to about all this?

 **FtLouie:** I have you.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Thank you, but I think you’d feel better being able to talk to someone whose life isn’t six hours ahead of yours. I’m supposed to be getting ready for bed right now.

 

;

 

It took Mia being barricaded in her room for almost four hours before it sank into her parent’s brains that no, Mia was Not willing to move to Genovia to learn to be a princess in a future she didn’t want; and her father was just going to have to deal with that fact.

“This can either be a discussion on my terms or not one at all, Dad!” Honestly, she was mostly just quoting some of Nick’s IMs, but she figured they wouldn’t know about that. “It’s MY life you guys want to uproot, which means **I** should get the final say!”

When they eventually coaxed Mia into the living room, Mia was scowling and fully defensive; her parents were desperate and uneasy.

Mia bit into her cheeks and squeezed her eyes shut – the pain hurt, but it stopped her tears from spilling. She was angry – and she was right to be! – but she hated making her parents upset with her. How was this fair?! How were her parents expecting she’d be _happy_ about this?!

“So I guess you figured I’d be a doormat about this then, huh?” The words were blurted out, all in a rush, the most New Yorker sentence Mia could muster, and also a total accusation.

“Mia – Mia, honey, no.” Helen was probably trying really hard to get a sentence together, but Phillipe beat her to it.

“The plan was to move you to Genovia because you are the _Genovian Princess_ – it was the most logical decision. You can’t rule a country you don’t live in, Mia.”

“I don’t WANT to rule a country, Dad! I don’t want to move – you aren’t giving me an _option_ , but you could at least _pretend_ like you aren’t FORCING ME to live a life I’ve NEVER wanted!!” Mia yelled.

Helen had taken the role of mediator – a role she was never very comfortable with, but this was clearly a conversation of two extremes. “Okay, okay. Phillipe, you need to tone it down, because this isn’t getting us anywhere.” Phillipe looked offended, but Helen ignored him, pulling their daughter onto the futon next to her. Mia refused to make eye contact. Helen brushed Mia’s loose hair behind her ear.

“Okay, how about we start from the top. Mia, when you were born, your father, his mother and I all agreed that I would be the one to have custody of you – your father needed to marry someone appropriate and have children, and I’d never wanted that sort of thing-“ Phillipe cut Helen a stare, which she ignored. “Although one could argue that fourteen years would be long enough to find a woman who did,” Helen cut Phillipe a glare, which he valiantly ignored, pretending he wasn’t the same man who had a new supermodel girlfriend every three weeks whose names Mia never bothered to remember the moment the woman was gone; “because we wanted you to grow up as a normal girl, free of the complications having a royal father would bring you.”

Mia just glared at the blank TV.

“The plan was to tell you when you were eighteen, or when Phillipe got married or had another child to be heir, whichever came first.” Mia scoffed, but said nothing. Helen continued, “but now things have changed, honey, and so our lives do to.”

That got Mia’s attention, in the form of a glare. “ _Our_ lives, Mom? _You’re_ not the one who’s going to be uprooted to Genovia. What, you’re going to give up art, and your life here in New York and live the rest of your life as a Duchess in Genovia or whatever, walking one step behind me and Dad forever? You’d hate it. _I’d_ hate it too, but _I_ also don’t **get** a choice.”

Helen nodded, acknowledging the unfairness. Phillipe sat down on the chair next to the futon and decided that, since Mia was – if not calmer, then unlikely to scream and lock herself back in her bedroom – and interjected, “But I think the initial plan of relocating you to Genovia will have to be scrapped, given your . . . feelings on the subject –“ Mia snorted. “So, instead your Mother and I have agreed that your royal training will happen here, in New York.”

Mia snapped her head to face her father. “What?” she breathed, her eyes wide circles. Helen smiled gently, like trying to reassure Fat Louie into getting off the top of the cabinet.

“You’re going to stay here, in New York, to finish your time at high school, and we’ll continue with the same arrangement we’ve been having since you were a child, with your school breaks being spent in Genovia. We can reassess as time goes by, but the point is that, barring my own untimely death, your life will be as normal as a princess in training can be.”

“What does that mean?” Mia was squinting with suspicion.

“You’ll have a bodyguard – should we deem it necessary, mostly when you’re in Genovia, unless this is all found out – the plan is to keep this as something of a secret from the general public, if we can. You’ll be driven to and from school, and after school will be your lessons in how to be a public figure in the capacity of my heir.”

“Princess lessons – what would those mean?”

“Oh, the usual things, dancing, etiquette, speech-giving, that sort of thing.”

“Grandmere’s already hammered a lot of that into me. It’s literally all she does when I’m under her thumb at Miragnac.”

Phillipe blinked. “Oh. Well, I’m sure my mother will find more to teach you.”

What? Grandmere was in France.

Still, this was all a better outcome than Mia was expecting, so she agreed to it all.

 

;

 

The next day at school – thankfully, bless fully, a Friday – Mia was . . . not out of sorts, or upset, but she was kind of listless and lacking in attention. Her friend, Tina Hankim Baba, was the first person to bring it up in a way that got Mia to actually admit there was something wrong.

“Mia,” she had to gently snap her fingers a couple times to get Mia to look up from her lunch, “Mia, is everything okay?”

Mia looked at Tina from where her attention had been on her salad. She wondered – what to say? Tina was easily the sweetest friend she had, and she’d definitely never judge Mia for her new princesshood the way Lilly definitely would; she’d probably be super excited over the situation. They’d made friends the first week of freshman year, when Mia had decided to sit with Tina after realising that the reason she sat alone was because people made fun of the fact Tina had to have a bodyguard – her super-rich father was terrified of Tina being kidnapped or something, so she had to have Wahim follow her wherever she went – school, home, the bookstore just two blocks away from her apartment building.

Mia’d become friends with her because, honestly, she could relate. Not in a major way, not at the time, but she’d realised that in another life, if Mia had been raised as royalty, instead of Nick telling her about it when she was thirteen (and now her Dad making it official), Mia’d probably grown up with a bodyguard following her every step. And to have people make fun of her for something her Dad had decided? That was just straight up **mean**. So, that second week of classes, the first Monday, Mia’d sat with Tina and beckoned her friends to join her once they got into the cafeteria. And it was friendship from there on.

So, _was everything okay_?

Uh.

“Yeah, no, I’m fine.” Mia lied. She hated doing it to Tina’s face – not the way she hated lying to Lilly, but Tina’s big brown eyes always made Mia feel guilty when she looked right at them and told a fib. “My Dad’s in town now, and we have dinner last night and talked about his whole _– situation_ ; I guess I’m just kinda bummed that he’s taking it so hard.”

Tina smiled sympathetically. “Yeah, I can get why he’d be bummed that he can’t have more kids, but maybe you guys can look on a – well, not brighter side, but an optimistic one: he’s got you, and why he want more than that?” Coming from someone else, that could easily be an insult, but Mia took it in the good faith it was meant in, and she smiled at the complement. Tina continued, “Besides, maybe this means he’ll find more time for you, you know? You’ll see him more often.”

Mia thought about the threatened Princess Lessons. “You’re probably right, Tina.”

 

;

 

Friday night was Helen’s date with Mr Gianini – which was in _no way_ an awkward conversation to have between Mia, Helen and Phillipe, not at _all_ – so Mia and her father had dinner together in a far more relaxed restaurant than the Palm Court that night.

“Does it have to be Grandmere who teaches me?” Mia didn’t want to sound whiny, but there was really no helping it. Clarisse Renaldi was her keeper for all her summer breaks, and as such, Mia’d already had basic etiquette drilled into her from a young age – Grandmere had been lecturing her on the proper way to sit, stand, sit down in a skirt (of any length) without being ‘immodest’ – which just means not letting your underwear show; walking in high heels, dining etiquette of all varieties (while also making it clear that Mia’s vegetarianism was not something she approved of), horse riding (honestly one of the few joys Mia ever had at Miragnac); and the most recent summer gone she’d hired a vocal coach to teach Mia how to _sing_ , of all things, three times a week; and whenever Viscount Mabrey wanted Nick to ‘have company’ (which in hindsight was translated as: have my nephew be in close proximity and confidence of the Dowager Princess and Genovia’s unofficial heir, whom my nephew is close in age with and with whom he gets along well, therefore giving me some leverage with our Crown Prince), semiformal dancing lessons also occurred in Miragnac’s ballroom – although they often only lasted as long as Grandmere could be bothered, at which point Nick and Mia dissolved into silliness and goofy dance-offs and Grandmere went off to smoke her cigarette and have a Sidecar.

So how much ‘princess training’ was Mia going to have to suffer, if she’d already been forced to cover the basics of it all?

“Yes, Mia.” Phillipe sounded tired, as if Mia’s ongoing assertiveness about her situation had drained him. Perhaps it had, what with Phillipe still being in recovery from chemotherapy and all. Mia felt bad for basically haranguing her cancer-survivor dad, but if he thought he could uproot her whole life without asking her opinion about it, then she only had minimal sympathy. “It is the duty of the Dowager Princess, whomever she is, to be heavily involved with the raising and education of the heir to Genovia. It’s what we’ve been doing for generations.”

“Previous generation’s Dowager Princesses weren’t GRANDMERE, Dad. Last summer, you know, when she FORCED me to take singing lessons – even though I don’t and have NEVER wanted to sing – the lady she hired was the sort of person who made my _lift the grand piano_ and _sing_ to enforce me singing from the ‘diaphragm, NEVER the lungs!’”

Phillipe finally bothered to look Mia in the eye. “Is that why the floor was always so scuffed after your lessons?”

“ _Yeah_ , Dad.” How was that what he noticed? Phillipe sighed, sipping the glass of scotch he had in his hand.

“Mia, I know my mother is – _difficult_ , to put it mildly, but she is a good teacher. She taught me all of my etiquette skills, and now I have a reputation for having never said an inappropriate or ridiculous thing in public in my entire adult life. It won’t be torture.”

“Grandmere hates me. It will be.” Mia bit into her vegetarian pasta, hard, as if to punctuate her sentence.

“My mother does not hate you, Mia. She just doesn’t know how to relate to you, and frankly, I’m fairly certain she’s stopped trying at this point. So instead, she treats you as she would a peer.”

“Dad, how many painkillers are you taking a day?” Mia scoffed. “Grandmere doesn’t treat me _as a peer_ , she treats me like I’m a cross between a child and something she scraped off the bottom of her shoe. Not being able to understand someone does not mean you can’t treat them well. Grandmere just likes torturing me, and I _guarantee_ that THAT is what my lessons will be. Torture.”

 

;

 

 **FtLouie:** So, the plan right now is: I spend HS in NYC, live in Genovia during the summer, and apparently Grandmere is coming to NYC to lecture me into becoming a princess so I don’t embarrass the entire dynasty.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** So, better than expected?

 **FtLouie:** I guess. Although it did take a three-hour siege of my barricaded bedroom for them to get the message that hey, maybe I’m not very enthusiastic moving to Europe a month into freshman year to be a princess.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** So you’ve chosen private American schooling over being castle-schooled, huh? I know people who would happily kill you in exchamge for not having to go to private school.

 **FtLouie:** Hey, I might not love my school, but I know I prefer it over whatever I would’ve ended up with in Genovia.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** No school uniforms?

 **FtLouie:** Very funny.

 

;

 

And then, after an uneventful weekend, Monday and Tuesday, disaster came on a private jet to one of New York’s airports.

 **FtLouie:** So at what point was anyone going to mention that GRANDMERE was going to be arriving in New York???!!!

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope** : Wasn’t the ‘your grandmother will be teaching your princess-ness’ an indicator that she’d be involved in this?

 **FtLouie:** Yeah, but I figured that’d be over the summer! Or after Christmas! Or at literally any point that wasn’t THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK FIVE DAYS AFTER MY PRINCESS-NESS IS A THING I HAVE TO DEAL WITH!

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** They want to get you started early?

 **FtLouie:** Oh my god, she’s going to hate it here. Should I call the president and tell him she’s here? If anyone can kickstart World War Three, it’s her.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Mia –

 **FtLouie:** She’s literally going to hate every aspect of New York. If she ever comes to the Loft, she’s going to lose her mind – she has a fit if she sees two people of the OPPOSITE sex holding hands, if she’s here for Pride she will LOSE IT. And dear god, the LOFT?! She’d have an aneurysm! Not just over Fat Louie, because she hates cats, but also Mom’s collection of fertility statues – like, they’re REALLY explicit! It’s also against the law to smoke in restaurants here, and you know how she gets when people tell Grandmere she can’t smoke.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Maybe all these aneurysms will be a final straw and she’ll go back to Miragnac and insist on only teaching you when you’re in Genovia.

 **FtLouie:** You know my wishes never come true.


	2. I can be a Princess inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, this chapter would end with Mia being ousted as a princess, but the it ran away from me.

So seeing Clarisse Renaldo for the second time in as many months was about as much fun as it ever was (read: it wasn't).

The main differences were mostly the window dressings – the suite Grandmere had in the Plaza was very pink, all over the place – pink flowers and cushions and carpet – whereas Miragnac (while still quite pink, due to some redecorating Grandmere had had done after Grandpere had died) was more in shades of cream and gold and light blue, more of a pastel country house of gentry in a period film, rather than the pink imitation the Plaza seemed to be going for.

It actually felt weird, for Mia, to see her Grandmere in a setting that wasn't Miragnac – after all, they rarely left the chateau once Mia got there for the summer.

Clarisse was, as per normal, decked out almost entirely in purple - her favourite colour – high-end fashion and crusted with jewellery that probably cost more than anything in Mia and her mother's entire apartment, even on her shoes (Why on earth would someone make shoes with diamonds sewn on? Really, why? Besides making the owner of such a pair of shoes come off as even richer and more snobbish about it than they already were?). Rommel was, of course, shivering his way through life as Clarisse clutched him in her arms; and she smoked her way through insulting Mia's entire appearance before dismissing Mia out of the room in under fifteen minutes because Clarisse had a dinner date.

Essentially, it was the average re-run of Mia's first day at Miragnac every summer – the mid-afternoon arrival and Mia's tiredness included.

Although this time around, it did include Mia being granted homework on the first day of it all – usually, giving Mia chores in etiquette was a second-day thing back in France. The chores? Oh, just a thousand-word essay on the women Mia admires most in the world and why, as well as a uniform-esque appearence for her to wear from now on! Nothing at  _all_ time-consuming or potentially princess-secret-busting happening here!

UGH.

 

;

 

And with the fear of her Grandmere's wrath, general displeasure, and control over her after school social life hanging over her head, Mia typed up the stupid essay/list thing – actually, it was pretty easy once Mia actually thought of women she admired, to the point she actually went over the set word count Grandmere had set.

But the pantyhose thing? The lipstick thing? That was gonna take more than half an hour to figure out.

To be clever, Mia borrowed some black nylons from her mother, as well as a lipstick, went to school with the annoying shoes that Helen had originally bought for Mia to go to school in (before Mia tapped that AEHS teachers didn't care too much about student's footwear, just so long as they didn't have to see any toes, and Mia joined the rest of the school in wearing whatever black shoes she could be bothered with), and she'd . . .  _tried_ (?) styling her hair, mostly by putting some little braids in and using them to keep her hair off her face. She'd even dug out a ribbon the same blue as her uniform and tied the braids with a bow, so, ta-da! An Effort Was Put In.

But instead of just letting one visible difference slide for once, Lilly felt the need to comment, mostly on the ribbon, asking, "So, Anne of Green Gables, ready for school, or shall we wait on your flock of sheep to turn up as well?"

Still, the day was uneventful, and after her math-not!detention session, Mia snuck into the ladies room and changed into the stupid nylons and shoes, and smudged on the bold-pink lipstick. It was a colour her mother actually didn't wear all that much – she preferred a red, but Mia figured that anything that looked that nice on her more olive-skinned mother wasn't a colour Mia would be able to wear well; and she was hoping to avoid being insulted  _too_  harshly by Grandmere, if she could. By the time she was fully prepped, she thought she looked pretty . . . almost pretty, actually. And she figured that she'd be safe from scrutiny until she got to Grandmere's, right up until she walked directly into Michael Moscovitz and dropped her entire bag on the ground.

"Christ, Thermopalis? What happened to  _you_?" Michael's brow was furrowed, and he looked really cute. Michael was always cute, not that Mia would ever admit as much to Lilly except maybe on the pain of death with the guarantee that she'd die immediately after admitting it. It's awkward to admit to your best friend that you've had a half-crush on her brother for about two years, when you started to notice that boys can actually be cute. But just because Michael was cute when he frowned doesn't mean Mia wanted him looking at her so suspiciously. "What's with the war paint?" Michael went on, his eyes flicking over her appearance.

"Review session with Mr G-" was Mia's blurted out answer, "I stay behind after school every day-"

"Yeah, I know that," Michael interrupted, "but why are you –" His eyes widened, like he'd realised something. "Thermopalis, are you going on a  _date_?"

Mia laughed in his face, standing up. "God, no! I'm meeting with my grandmother, she's in town-"

"You wear pantyhose and lipstick to meet your grandmother?" Michael didn't sound like he believed her.

Mia stopped laughing and arched an eyebrow. "My grandmother is a rich old French lady who likes to think society stopped moving forward the day Princess Grace died, and she gets mad whenever someone brings up that it has. Yeah, I wear pantyhose and lipstick to meet my grandma. The other option is being scolded for being in public without them."

Okay, so actually a huge lie, but it's not like Michael was ever going to meet Grandmere, so Mia figured she'd be okay to lie. And that was when Mia noticed that she was being stared at, intensely, not just by Michael – who was staring like if he did it hard enough, he'd reconcile Mia's short description of her grandma with his own Grandma Moscovitz, whom Mia had met and was the exact opposite of Clarisse Renaldo in every way – but by the scattered remains of the Computer Club that Michael was treasurer of. Their stares – they were mostly boys, actually – made Mia feel like there was some bug crawling on her skin. She needed to get out of there.

"Okay!" She said loudly, really uncomfortable in the attention, "So I'm gonna go-" Mia grabbed her things out of Michael's hands where he was holding them after collecting them off the floor. "And see my grandma now. Don't tell Lilly you saw me, okay?"

Mia brushed past Michael, who was kind of gaping like a fish at her face, actually, and just barely kept from sprinting to the door, where Lars was waiting with the limo – she'd told him that he could get away with not being stared at this late in the afternoon after school that he could come straight to the front door (probably shouldn't have done that. Anyone who saw her get into the car could kickstart a rumour Mia didn't need to deal with right now).

And Mia's first official princess lesson was horrible, as she expected. Clarisse kicked things off by saying the shade of lipstick Mia was wearing made her look like a  _poulet_ , which – it's rather rich for the sixty-some lady dressed all in purple with tattooed-on eyeliner, draw-on eyebrows, and chain-smokes like it's the only thing keeping her alive to say her granddaughter looks like a prostitute because of  _lipstick_  – also didn't help; and Clarisse's review of Mia's essay/list was to tear the whole thing up and throw it in a bin, so all in all, exactly the sort of reaction Mia had been hoping to avoid.

Whatever.

Then, they spent two hours with Grandmere insistently hammering posture and seating etiquette – it was actually a thing that they did every time Mia came back to her Grandmere's, because Mia stubbornly refused to 'sit like a lady' unless she had to, and Clarisse insisted that Mia always forgot how to be ladylike (personally, Mia just thought that Grandmere was running out of etiquette things to lecture her on, so she insisted on hitting the same beats all the time for Grandmere's own amusement). And finally, at about 6pm, Mia was bluntly told to go home, because Grandmere wanted to bathe before preparing for some dinner with some politician, but not before being informed to cancel whatever Saturday plans she had, because Mia would be spending the day with Grandmere.

Mia did actually try to protest this, because Saturday was when she helped Lilly film for her cable-access show, but actually she wasn't as upset as she claimed – Lilly's plan for the next episode involved confronting the owners of the deli near AEHS, who were giving five-cent discounts to students of the same ethnicity as the owners, but not anyone else. Mia got why Lilly was so mad, kinda, but figured that it was a big deal being made over five cents, especially since, again, it was  _five cents_  off the original tagged price. So being forced to miss the filming of Lilly harassing the deli owners wasn't really something Mia was upset over, so much as the principle of the thing, as well as the fact that Lilly always got really pissy whenever something inconvenienced her when she had a plan.

 

;

 

Okay.

Okay, when she agreed to be the princess without complaint (or, well, minimal complaint), at NO POINT did anyone say anything about makeovers. Okay? AT NO POINT.

So, please appreciate for a second exactly how  _pissed_  Mia is right now, because – her hair is gone. Okay, that's a lie, it's actually more of a pixie-bob thing where she has hair long enough to pin with bobby-pins, but short enough to show a good 90% of her neck, which, FYI, NOT a feature of hers that Mia's ever really loved. And she's blonde now. She  _was_  a brown-blonde just a few short hours ago, but now she's a blonde that's eerily reminiscent of Lana Weinberger, which is probably an aspect of this that Mia hates the whole damn most. Oh, and the fingernails-things – those are a thing. Specifically, they are little fake nails glued onto her real nails that, okay, she always had a nail-biting problem, but that doesn't mean she wanted FAKE ones. She keeps scratching herself with them.

Also, the scratchy facial that no one thought to ask her if she wanted, the very forceful eyebrow and upper lip waxing, and finally, after completely altering Mia's entire appearance, Grandmere then dragged Mia into just about every high-end fashion boutique that was willing to completely empty themselves out on a Saturday so that the Dowager Princess of Genovia and the still-secret heir could go shopping for clothes that the still-secret princess heir really, truly, genuinely did not want, would not wear, and was therefore just a waste of money.

She told Grandmere all of this too, by the way.

She told her that under no circumstances would Mia ever wear Chanel skirts, Dolce & Gabbana tops, Gucci shoes, or Christian Dior underwear which, by the way, didn't even come in the size of bra Mia actually wears. Literally all of the clothing bought totalled up to a higher bill than the one the vet gave Mia and her mother after he'd removed the sock that Fat Louie once ate. The difference is, that Mia got to go home with her pet cat afterwards, whereas this time, she went home with half a wardrobe of she didn't want and wouldn't wear, as well as a haircut she didn't want and that would attract stares the  _second_  she set foot in school on Monday.

She told all of this to her father, the second she got home. Why was her dad at the Loft when she got home, despite the fact that he and her mother generally couldn't get along for more than twenty minutes at a time if left alone together? Mia didn't know; Mia didn't care. Phillipe Renaldo had made the mistake of being there when Mia was steaming mad, so he had to deal with the consequences.

"First she gives me homework. Then she rips it up because she doesn't like what I wrote. She forces me to learn how to sit down to two hours – which, by the way, she does every summer whenever I make the mistake of slouching in front of her. Then, she drags me to a salon where the staff there cut and colour my hair without asking me, pour hot wax on my face to rip out hair without asking me, and glue tiny surfboards to my nails without asking me. THEN, she spends four hours dragging me around stores for stupidly expensive clothing I don't want and will never wear, and make me look like the mean, snobby girls at my school." Phillipe had the expression of someone who completely understood Mia's grievances, but was going to side with Grandmere anyway, which just made Mia angrier.

"Dad, at NO POINT during our little 'you're a princess whether you like it or not' tit-for-tat, did you ever say that I should have to be okay with Grandmere taking complete control over my life and appearance! Dad, WHAT THE HELL?! I know I don't look at ALL princess-y, but this crosses a damn line!"

Helen was watching her daughter and her ex with the attention of someone witnessing a public breakup scandal while eating in the park – utterly entertained. Phillipe nodded, once, before pulling out his wallet. "So how much?"

Mia was suddenly tired, after yelling. "What?" she asked, exasperated.

"How much money do I have to pay you, Mia, to let my mother turn you into a princess?" Phillipe said this like it was a completely reasonable sentence. Mia was appalled. So was Helen.

"Phillipe," she said in a warning tone, but Phillipe himself kept his gaze firmly on Mia.

"I'm serious here, Mia," Phillipe said, "if our initial agreement isn't enough to appease you about this, then becoming a princess can be a job. I will pay your salary. So. If you will agree to let my mother do whatever she feels is necessary to make you into the princess you are going to have to be one day, Mia, I will set up a bank account for you, and put money into it for every day my mother spends teaching you to be a princess, and all it entails. Holiday breaks included."

Mia opened her mouth to argue about personal integrity and not selling her soul for a profit, but she only got about two sentences in before Phillipe heaved this huge sigh and amended his offer. "Fine. If you do this, I will donate one hundred dollars a day to this salary we are making. Twenty dollars into your personal account, and eighty dollars daily to – what is it you love so much? Greenpeace. In your name, Greenpeace will receive eighty dollars in donations daily, and you will get twenty dollars daily as a stipend."

Phillipe stared his politician-stare into his daughter's gobsmacked face. It was the same one Helen was making. "Do we have a deal?"

They did.

 

;

 

**FtLouie:** You know what I love? When my friend turns around and says that there's something seriously wrong with my personality because I cancelled plans for one (1) day! Like, oh, I'm sorry, Lilly, I had no idea that the 50,000+ people of Genovia mattered LESS than your CABLE ACCESS SHOW WHERE YOU HAVE US ALL HARASS PEOPLE.

**FtLouie:**  Yeah, sure, it was actually a total makeover I didn't even WANT, but she could've at least heard me out before jumping down my throat.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Okay, I'm out of the loop here. What's happened?

**FtLouie:**  Grandmere decided that she didn't like my looks, so she dragged me downtown to get a full physical alteration without asking my opinion instead of my usual Saturday helping Lilly with her show. I'm blonde now, is the point.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Ah. And Lilly didn't like this?

**FtLouie:**  No.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** And now there's a feud?

**FtLouie:**  Probably? She hasn't called to apologise.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Please give me a run-down here. I'm a bit lost.

**FtLouie:**  So, Grandmere is giving me princess lessons now, right? So last night, she says that I have to clear my Saturday so that we can something something princess lessons. And I hate this, but I do, making Lilly mad at me, because she wants to call a boycott of the deli near our school (it's a thing involving a five cent discount and the fact that the owners are Asian-American). So I'm not at the filming, because Grandmere likes making my life difficult, and I'm getting a makeover that I a) don't want, and b) am not being consulted on.

**FtLouie:**  And then, I go over to Lilly's to help edit the film, as I promised as a compromise for not being there during, and she's just like, 'Oh my god, Your hair's yellow. You have fake fingernails. You let me down over my arbitrary and frankly small-minded soapbox complaints over Ho's Deli. You look like Lana Weinberger. How dare you say no to me.'

**FtLouie:**  so I snap and yell and storm out, and now I'm at home while my Mom is on a date with the Algebra teacher who makes me stay behind after school every day to study so I don't fail.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Is the makeover really that drastic? To provoke a reaction that bad?

**FtLouie:** I mean, I don't like it, but mostly because it makes me look like a bad imitation of Lana Weinberger.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Email me a picture.

This took a minute, as Mia had to drag out webcam and boot the thing up, before taking a rather grainy photo.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** I mean. It's different, but I wouldn't say you look bad. You look good.

**FtLouie:** No I don't! I look like Lana!

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Never met her. But this also isn't flattery. You do look good – you've got the cheekbones for the hair.

**FtLouie:** Stop lying to make me feel good.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** You know, you've got this bad habit of fishing for compliments, and then disregarding them once someone gives you one. You. Look. Good. You look  **blonde** , but you've got the colouring for it.

**FtLouie:** Really?

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** **Yes.**

**FtLouie:**  Oh. Well.

**FtLouie:** Thank you.

**FtLouie:**  So how's your week been?

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:**  Relatively uneventful. Uncle is in Italy this week and the next, visiting some friends or allies or whomever, so he's not here to yell at me for getting detention.

**FtLouie:**  What did you get detention for?

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Arguing with my literature teacher. We're reading the Lord of the Flies this week, and they tried the whole 'the point of this book is that people are inherently chaotic, and the removal of power structures causes us to devolve into lawless animals'.

**FtLouie:** Isn't that the point? That's what people have always told me, when we watched that movie in middle school.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Yes and no. I know it's a popular reading of it, but the author literally wrote Lord of the Flies as a reaction to a bunch of Robinson Cruse-type books about boys from a British boarding school, and how they washed up on an island and had lovely adventures and were the perfect pictures of British superiority compared to the savages on the island who were, conveniently, people of colour who were also Not British.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Lord of the Flies was a reaction to that, saying 'Hey idiots, have you forgotten what boys are like? This is what would actually happen'. It's been theorised that a rewrite of the book would go very differently if it were boarding school girls, or people of lower classes, because girls at the height of the book's setting were taught to be kind and considerate of others, and people of lower social classes are generally more compassionate;

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** As opposed to the upper-classes of Britain, where a lot of emphasis is put on social standing and personal empowerment, rather than the betterment of society as a whole.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Pointing this all out to my teacher did not go over well for me.

 

Okay, Mia has to ask. What the hell kind of private school for rich kids does Nick go to, and what kind of people are they, because every time Nick talks of them, he never sounds like he's having a good time.

 

**FtLouie:** Did you research all of that before you had to read this book?

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Yes. I read the book on a recommendation from my uncle a bit back, because Machiavelli is his whole worldview, and I went out looking for alternative ideas.

**FtLouie:**  So you had all the information compiled already?

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:**  I'm a fan of getting all my ducks in a row, yes.

**FtLouie:**  I've noticed.

**FtLouie:** Thank you for getting my mind off the Lilly thing, too, by the way. Now I'm just going to be thinking of Lord of the Flies all night.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** You're welcome :p

 

;

 

Oh god, why why why? Why did she have to stand up for herself last night, why didn't she just roll over and show Lilly her belly, if only so that she could've stayed the night and avoided seeing . . .  _that_.

How is she ever going to pay attention in Algebra ever again, if all she can do in that class is revisit the mental image of Mr Gianini in his boxer shorts at her dinner table?!

GOD.

 

;

 

Okay, so that was a slight overreaction, and Mr Gianini would undoubtedly just have to deal with Mia staring off into space a bit, because it turns out that, uh, he's pretty cool? Or at least he knows how to make a joke.

God, if he and her mom become more serious . . . well, eh, would it be so bad? Mr G is probably one of the better teachers at AEHS, despite Mia's own inability to get anything he says about math.

Ugh, let's not think about any of that at all, thanks.

 

;

 

**Iluvromance:** Hey Mia. I know this is a random question, but did something happen between you and Lilly? I just ask because I was just IMing with Lilly and mentioned you, and she went off on this massive rant about how you're a - well, it wasn't nice.

**FtLouie:** Yeah. Uh.

**FtLouie:**  I went over last night to help edit, you know, after I'd missed yesterday's taping, and. Well.

**FtLouie:**  The whole reason I had to miss the taping was because my grandma is in town and she wanted to spend yesterday with me, which it turns out is code for 'force Mia into a makeover without asking whether or not she wants one', and now I'm blonde. And it freaked Lilly out.

**FtLouie:**  Which is fair, kinda, because I freaked out when I first saw it, but then she went off on this whole rant about how I have no spine unless it suits me, and how dare I say no to her, and now I look like Lana Weinberger and some more awful stuff, so I snapped and told her to shut up. Which just made Lilly get worse, and now I think we're arguing?

**Iluvromance:** Oh. Wow.

**Iluvromance:**  Okay, that explains some of it. Are you really blonde now?

**FtLouie:**  Yeah. It's sickening.

**Iluvromance:**  I'm sure it isn't, and besides, Lilly saying you look like Lana can't be true anyway – you two look nothing alike, and besides, hair grows out. You'll look back to normal in some time, so freaking out about a haircut isn't warranted.

**FtLouie:**  Thanks, Tina. I needed that.

**Iluvromance:**  although I would suggest that you don't expect an immediate apology from Lilly. She sounded really mad.

**FtLouie:**  Really? Aw geez. Who am I going to sit with a school tomorrow then?

**Iluvromance:**  Well, the whole 'Ho-gate' thing seems like it's actually going to be a big deal, if Lilly has her way, so we'll probably actually need to sit somewhere else tomorrow. How about you and me find our own table instead of worrying?

**FtLouie:**  God, yes. You're such a good planner, Tina.

**Iluvromance:**  ! Thanks! And don't worry so much about Lilly, I'm sure she'll get over it!

**FtLouie:**  I hope so. I hate fighting with her.

 

;

 

Okay, so Mia didn't even know that Michael had her IM email, never mind that he would contact her after what happened with Lilly.

 

**CracKing:** Hey Thermopalis, what happened last night? It's like you went mental or something?

**FtLouie:** For your information, I did not go mental. I just got tired of your sister always telling me what to do. Not that it's any of your business.

**CracKing:** What are you being so snotty about? Of course it's my business. I have to live with her, don't I?

**FtLouie:** Why? Is she talking about me?

**CracKing:** You could say that.

**FtLouie:** What's she saying about me?

**CracKing:** I thought it wasn't any of my business.

**FtLouie:** It isn't. What's she saying about me?

**CracKing:** That she doesn't know what's with you these days, but ever since your dad came to town, you've been acting like a cagey head case.

**FtLouie:** That's rich – I'M the head case? She's always putting me down, and now my grandma's in town too, I don't need two people insulting everything I do – I'm sick of it! If she wants to be my friend, she needs to get off her high horse – she's always going on about people should be judged for their actions, not their looks, but when  _I_  am dragged into a makeover I don't even want, I'm the one turning into LANA?!

**CracKing:** You don't need to yell.

**FtLouie:** I'm not yelling!

**CracKing:** You're using excessive amounts of punctuation, and online, that's the equivalent of yelling. Besides, Lilly's not the only one criticising. She says you won't support her boycott of Ho's Deli.

**FtLouie:** Well, she's right. I won't. It's so stupid, don't you think? I mean, who cares about five cents anyway?

**CracKing:** Sure, it's stupid. Was the makeover really your grandma's whole deal?

**FtLouie:** Yep. I got to hers, and she says 'Let's go', so we go to a stylist's and they sit me down in the chair and by the time I realise what's happening, the guy's cut three chunks of hair off and my grandma's scowling at me so I don't say a word. So I'd just spent the whole day being insulted for my looks, and then I get to Lilly's, and she's decided to insult my entire personality too. I cracked.

**CracKing:** Yeah, okay. That makes more sense now. Are you still failing Algebra?

 

_That_ was a subject change.

 

**FtLouie:**  I guess so, but given that Mr G slept over last night, I'll probably manage a D. Why?

**CracKing:** What? Mr G slept over last night? At your place? What was that like?

**FtLouie:** I didn't mean to admit that. It was pretty awful, but he kind of joked around, and that made it OK. I don't know. I think I should be more mad, but my mom's so happy, it's hard.

**CracKing:** Your mom could do a lot worse than Mr G.

**FtLouie:** Given that I have met some of mom's exes, I get what you're saying. And yes, I am including my dad in that number.

**CracKing:** Whoa, really? Ha.

**FtLouie:** Given his recent interference in my life, yeah. Why'd you want to know if I'm failing Algebra?

**CracKing:** Because I'm done with this month's issue of CrackHead, and I thought if you wanted, I could tutor you in G&T. If you wanted.

**FtLouie:** Oh my god, that would be so great! Thanks!

**CracKing:** Hang in there, Thermopalis. Nowhere to go but up when you're at the bottom.

**FtLouie:** Bold of you to assume that I'm at the bottom. Or that I can't find a shovel to dig deeper.

**CracKing:** Ha ha. You'll be fine.

 

;

 

So on Monday, Lars, the driver of the limousine Mia's dad had insisted she take to and from school every day since her royal status was Agreed, dropped Mia off at school, where she immediately got slapped in the face with a petition to boycott the Ho's Deli. Lilly moves fast when angered and holding a grudge.

Mia rolled her eyes at Boris Pelkowski, the Russian violinist student holding it. She shared Gifted and Talented class with him, but where Mia spent the class either doing homework or trying to study Algebra, Boris spent the class practicing his violin concertos – a practice that, due to the volume level of his violin, had led to the habit of Boris being locked into the G&T room's supply closet, in an attempt to muffle the sound and give everyone less of a headache. Lilly had been crushing on Boris basically since the second day of school. Mia was more ambivalent.

When she told him she wanted no part in the boycott, though, Boris got rather indignant, telling her that in Russia, signing a petition would often result in that person being arrested by the secret police, and not demonstrating Mia's own American right to protest was disrespectful to his own home-country's struggles.

Mia told him that she was demonstrating her American right to protest – she was protesting the persecution of the Ho family, who had been enacting their own American rights of conducting their business how they wished.

Which was clearly not a stance that she had public support with – even if she and Lilly weren't feuding, there probably wouldn't have been a spot at their normal lunch table for Mia to sit at; instead it was full of people trying to organise a public protest outside the deli, including posters and chants that the students could chant at the Ho's themselves and the customers still using their 'racist' service.

Mia stared rather dead-eyed at the display from the table she and Tina had snagged. All this mess over five cents? Now she knew had Aladdin felt, being chased all over Agrabah by the city guards, over a loaf of bread. Jesus.

Tina was up getting herself another soda, Wahim in tow. Mia felt . . . weird, about the whole bodyguard thing. Part of the reason she wasn't thrilled about the princess thing - beside the complete alteration of what her life had been - was that . . . if she had to have a bodyguard, would she ever have privacy again? Like, Tina didn't seem to mind all that much, but she'd had a bodyguard since she was in elementary school, almost. She'd said that she'd just gotten used to it, but Tina's mom had told Mia, that time the two of them had a sleepover at Tina's earlier in the semester, that Mia was really one of the first people outside the 'Arabian sheik' world that the Hakim Baba's inhabited to try to befriend Tina. So, the bodyguard . . . sure, Tina didn't mind, and she and Wahim seemed to have a, an older cousin/brother interaction happening, where Tina didn't make a fuss about Wahim's flirting with Mademoiselle Klein, the French teacher, and Wahim didn't tell Tina's dad about her habit of putting on makeup after leaving the house – Mr Hakim Baba being one of those dad's that didn't want their daughters to wear makeup. So having a bodyguard probably wasn't all bad, once you got used to it. That didn't mean she wanted to get used to it.

Mia was reading the blurb of the romance novel that Tina had brought with her to school that day – one amazing thing about Tina, her taste in books. Mia hadn't really been interested in the genre, but Tina coming into her life had broadened Mia's horizons in the BEST way, literature-wise – and a shadow fell over Mia's head.

She turned around and came face-first with the tight white sweater of the Albert Einstein High School Cheerleading squad, as worn by one Lana Weinberger. So, to explain Mia's complaints about being made to look like Lana from two days ago, a brief description of the prettiest girl in the ninth grade: she's about five-foot-six, with long, shimmering blonde hair, her blue eyes are always highlighted perfectly on her face by flawless makeup, and the only time her berry-pink lipgloss is out of place is after she's been kissing her boyfriend where he's shoved Lana up against Mia's locker. Yeah. For the last month and a half of Mia's first year in high school, Mia has had a locker directly next to the locker of the most popular and handsome boy in the school: one Josh Ritcher, senior-year student. Who has been dating Lana for almost that entire time. So, daily, Mia has had the utter  _pleasure_  of watching the two of them make out against the two lockers, often unable to get into hers.

Lana's kind of been Mia's nemesis since their middle school days – Mia had corrected Lana on Lana's interpretation of a book they'd had to read for class, just by saying that Lana was misremembering which character was which. And then Lana had tried to make Mia's life a living hell ever since. 'Tried' being the operating word – hasn't Mia proven she's more than able to ruin things for herself all on her own?

So here she is, staring up at Lana's smug, snotty face – not often a position Mia was in, given Mia's height over the rest of her grade level, normally making Mia look down on most all the girls in her grade – as Lana raised one finger and placed it firmly on the parting in Mia's hair. "Nice hair, Amelia," Lana said in a snotty voice, "are we aiming to be Tinkerbell for Halloween?"

Yeah, Mia's hair had been a note of attention for her classmates basically the whole day. Few had actually asked her anything about it, but she'd heard girls whispering about it in class. She hadn't done much to mitigate the attention she knew she'd get, more aiming to brush it off as none of anyone else's business – she'd just kinda brushed it out of her face and shoved it behind her ears. At a distance, Mia had decided that Nick was right – it wasn't a  _bad_  look on her, the blonde brought out her grey eyes better than her natural colour did, and she  _did_  have the cheekbones for it – but she still hated that Grandmere hadn't even given Mia warning about the change. Or the option to say no.

Mia glanced behind Lana, to where Josh Ritcher and his jock friends were sitting for lunch, talking about how they were all somehow still hungover from a party they'd been to on the weekend. She had to wonder if their coach knew.

"What do you call this colour, anyway? Pus Yellow?" Lana continued, not apparently aware of Mia's non-focus on her attempts at witty commentary. Mia knew she looked okay – Tina and Ling Su and Shameeka had all complimented her new haircut, despite Mia's own disinterest in her makeover. Lana was just flinging rudeness.

Tina finally came back to the table, bringing two sodas – one for her, one for Mia. Mia smiled gratefully at Tina and Wahim, but the bodyguard and his charge shared a glance before Tina cocked an eyebrow at Mia. It said 'how do you want to handle this?'

Mia wanted to handle it by letting Lana run out of steam and go away, but Lana was like a terrier – once she had something, it was really hard to get to release her grip. And because of Mia's wish to avoid conflict, Lana naturally turned her teeth to Tina. "Oh, how sweet. Tina, tell me, does your daddy give you money every day to keep paying people to be your friends, or can Mia be bought with soda every day?"

Tina gaped at little, at that. Lana had actually been ignoring the friendship between Mia and Tina for a while, actually, preferring to target Mia only. Wahim opened his mouth to say something, but Mia beat him to it.

She stood up, cracked open the can of soda Tina had given her, and, using the three inches of height she had on Lana, as well as the element of surprise, poured the soda can all over Lana's pretty blonde hair.

Lana was so shocked that she didn't say anything until no more soda spilled out of the can. But once done, Lana's voice sliced through the dead silence the cafeteria had become – everyone had stared, dead silent, for the ten full seconds Mia had poured the soda on Lana's head. "You – you –!" Lana stuttered, then screamed, not really in words, but more the shock of someone who doesn't know what to say.

Mia kept her face blank, but walked around the table to Tina, grabbing her friend's hand. "Let's go somewhere a bit quieter, yeah?" Her voice was steady, the shock of what she'd done and the trouble she was definitely going to get in not getting to her yet.

She and Tina walked out of the room, Wahim following with a hand over his mouth, desperately attempting not to laugh; when they passed the table they usually sat at, Lilly was staring, round-eyed and shocked, at Mia. Guess Mia wasn't as unassertive as Lilly thought, huh?

She wasn't sure, but applause may have come from the lunch tables the Geeks sat at too, as she left.


	3. A great deal more of a triumph to be a Princess all the time

Of course, Mia’d had to have been really stupid not to expect Principal Gupta wouldn’t find out about the soda-dumping, so when Mia got into Gifted and Talented without being called in, she spent every five minutes being distracted from Michael’s tutoring to watch every person walk past the classroom door, anticipating the order to the school office.

She really shouldn’t have let herself get distracted, because Michael’s help was desperately needed if she wanted to raise her F grade into something passable. When he walked her through the equations in her worksheet, she almost understood everything he said and how it all worked. Almost.

Of course, even without her impending disciplinary chat with Gupta, she still probably would’ve been distracted anyway, what with the sensation of Lilly staring daggers at her head – not that Mia could confirm it for herself; every time her head went up to look around the room, Lilly’s head went down to focus on what she was calling the Ho Offensive, the next step in harassing – sorry, combating the racism in the neighbourhood.

Or she just would’ve gotten distracted by her _tutor_ from being tutored – Michael, in close-up, is just as cute as he is across a room, and he even smells good, like soap and clean-boy (it’s one of the reasons she likes Nick, actually, this nice scent where his smells like grass if he’s been in the garden, or chocolate or vanilla if he’s been baking, overlaid with just _clean_ - _boy_ ), and sometimes reaching across the table to take the pencil from her hands and be all ‘Like _this_ , Mia’.

But then the stupid hall pass arrived with Mia’s name on it, thus dragging her out of G&T and dumping her into the uncomfortable chair in Principal Gupta’s office.

She wasn’t ashamed of what she’d done – she’d never done anything like it before, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t enjoyed it a little. Mostly she’d been running on the sharp, tunnel-focus that happened whenever she got screaming mad – it was the same focus that had provoked her anger at Lilly on Saturday, but this was the first time that kind of rage ended up becoming something physical. Whatever. Lana deserved it – she’d been terrorising Mia since middle school, and two weeks ago, Lana had flicked her hair all over Mia’s desk during Algebra from her seat in front, snagging onto Mia’s pencil and dragging a great big line all over the paper. Thursday last week alone, she’d looked down Mia’s shirt when Mia was getting her things from her locker, sneered, and gone “Oh, that’s sweet. I see we still can’t fit into a bra. Have you considered just slapping some band-aids on?”

So what, was Mia supposed to _apologise_? No way. Forget it. Lana was never going to let this go, so why would Mia be willing to?

Principle Gupta was staring at Mia over the top of her reading glasses, concern writ all over her face. Mia sat in her chair, unrepentant. “I’m not apologizing,” said Mia, her voice flat.

Gupta raised her eyebrows, “I beg your pardon?”

“Lana has been bullying me since we were in middle school. She was bulling me at lunch today, and then she started taunting my friend. It was provoked. I’ll pay to have her uniform dry-cleaned, if you want, and you can give me detention for a month or whatever, but I’m not apologizing.” She could feel her heart thumping harder in her chest, but refused to have any fear in her voice.

Gupta somehow looked more concerned. “Well . . . you’ve admitted it, I suppose. And yes, we were going to have you apologise and clean the uniform, but you’ve clearly made your mind up.” She sighed. “Mia, I have to say, when Lana came in here with her complaint, I was extremely surprised. It’s usually Lilly Moscovitz I have to pull in here. I never expected I was going to have to pull _you_ in. Not for disciplinary reasons. Academic ones, maybe. I understand you aren’t doing very well in Algebra. But I’ve never known you to have a disciplinary issue before. Mia, I really have to ask . . . is everything all right?”

If this were a movie, there would be a record scratch right now. The screen would zoom in on Mia’s face, and the voiceover would start. _Is everything alright?_ Uh. Well, let’s think – one year ago, Mia was told that her father was the Crown Prince of a European country, and as his only living, recognised child, Mia was likely the default heir, but that was okay! Because her father was healthy and would get married and have more kids of his own at some point, so Mia didn’t need to bother to care. But just two weeks ago, her father – the Crown Prince one – comes into her boring New York life and announces, darling, the testicular cancer I had has rendered me infertile. You are now the Official Heir. You are a Princess. And NOW, Mia is getting held back in school by the Algebra teacher who is dating her mother - and whom she walked in on eating breakfast in his boxers at her dining table – and then immediately going to the Plaza Hotel to be tutored by her harridan grandmother – the Dowager Princess of her father’s European country, by the by – for a few hours so that Mia doesn’t one day ascend to the throne of Genovia and promptly make an ass of herself for the world to see; so Mia generally gets home between 6 to 8 at night.

Oh, and she’s spending her school days themselves being bullied by the most popular girl in ninth grade, feuding with her best friend, and being without a boyfriend. Is there anything else you’d like to know, Principal Gupta?

But since this isn’t a movie, Mia just felt her eyes go round and pinched her lips into a very tight smile, and said in a tight, high-pitched, almost sarcastic voice, “Sure. Everything’s _fine_.”

“Really, Mia? Because I can’t help wondering if this isn’t all rooted in some problems you might be having – maybe at home?”

Mia was trying _really, really_ hard NOT to laugh. Problems at home? No, she couldn’t possibly be having those!

“Mia,” Principal Gupta continued, “I want you to know that you are a special person, with many wonderful qualities and skills. I’ve read your school reports – except for your math and sciences classes, you are a very good student. There is absolutely no reason for you to feel threatened by Lana. None at all.”

_What?_ Mia _shouldn’t_ feel threatened by the pretty, popular girl dating the handsome, popular jock guy who insults and demeans and tries to humiliate Mia in public? Threatened? _Nah_.

“Truly, Mia. I really think that if you took the time to get to know Lana, you’d find that she’s really a very sweet girl, just like you.”

_Just like you_. Are we sure about that?

 

;

 

That little saccharine moment, on top of the week’s detention Mia received, made Mia so upset that she spilled the whole situation to Grandmere and her dad that night – after talking her dad down from suing the school over the detention and Grandmere deciding to have their vocabulary lesson also stretch into dining etiquette, having Mia join the two of them in the Palm Court for dinner.

“When I was your age,” Clarisse said in-between two courses, when Phillipe was taking a phone call outside the restaurant, “there was a girl like this Lana at my school. Her name was Genevieve. She sat behind me in Geography. Genevieve would take the end of my braid, and dip it in her inkwell, so that when I stood up, I got ink all over my dress. But the teacher would never believe me that Genevieve did it on purpose.”

“Really?” this was the first Mia had ever heard of anyone, ever, taunting Clarisse Renaldo. “What did you do?”

Clarisse let out a rather evil-sounding laugh. “Oh, nothing.”

Mia didn’t believe that for a _second_ , but Grandmere refused to say anything more, and instead lectured Mia on how not eating every dish put in front of her could lead to diplomatic disaster, so Mia got to spend five minutes explaining all the ways that she could get out of it. Phillipe came back to the table somewhere in the middle, and refused to back up either of them, because his phone call had been some dignitary from Spain he didn’t like, and the conversation had given him a headache.

Mia ended the day with a headache too – with the addition of her detention on top of Algebra tutoring from Mr G, AND princess lessons plus the dinner, Mia wasn’t home before 9:30pm.

UGH.

 

;

 

Tuesday unveiled a number of things that, while in no way worthy of a freak-out, still rankled Mia’s nerves – Lilly refused to meet for a pickup again, and Mia and Lars agreed to stop driving by Lilly’s until and unless they were on speaking terms again, to make better time to school; where it turned out that Lilly had a date to the Cultural Diversity Dance that was happening on Saturday – an actual surprise to Mia, because she’d been confident that all the boys in their school were terrified of Lilly.

Turned out there was one boy who wasn’t: Boris Pelkowski, of the violin and tucked-in sweaters.

GOD.

So, what, Mia was good enough to be physically heinous to run a country one day, but not un-scary enough that LILLY got asked to the school dance and she didn’t?? Really???

Granted, Mia wasn’t actually all that enamoured by the dance, but still! It’d be fun to go!! To get dressed up and dance with her friends! Have A Good Time!

Ling Su had a date with one of the boys in her Art Club; Shameeka had a date in one of the boys on the school volleyball team; Lilly now had a date – even Tina, who wasn’t allowed to walk the two blocks between her apartment to their school had a date in this guy Dave, who, sure, went to another school in Manhattan and whose father was the kind of stupid rich Tina’s was, but still. People _asked_ them!

To be fair . . . she might have missed a chance to be asked out, maybe?

When Michael was tutoring her in G&T, he’d queried about how grounded she was, and when Mia’d said she wasn’t at all, he’d made a sentence that, at the time, had sounded like the two of them should get together Saturday over something, but Mrs Hill, the G&T ‘supervisor’ (meaning that she spent all her time doing whatever in the teacher’s lounger across the hall) had come back into the room to get the kids in there to take some survey, and Mia had assumed Michael was suggested they get together over the weekend for more tutoring and had booked it out of the classroom the second the class period was over; because who wants to do more homework on the weekend than they have to?

So . . . it was definitely more possible that Michael was just wanting to go over her long division, because he claimed it to be a human tragedy, or maybe it was an offer for the dance, but, frankly, Mia was willing to bet it was the Math thing, because she really didn’t like to delude herself.

And no matter how cute Michael was, there was not a chance in hell of Mia willingly signing up for _more_ Algebra just to see him out of school.

 

;

 

Wednesday dawned to the sun shining through her bedroom window, as it always did. Fat Louie was perched on her windowsill, watching the pigeons on her fire escape with hungry eyes, as he always did.

It was the same sort of morning as every other morning, but something felt . . . _off_. Like she was in a movie, and the _Jaws_ theme was humming throughout her whole morning, as she was getting ready for school, as Lars dropped her off, as the students around her reacted to her presence. Normally, when she walked into school, there was a bunch of students hanging out, lounging on Joe and Jake, the stone lions by the entrance, smoking cigarettes and stuff that was more potent than cigarettes, talking about whatever and happily ignoring anyone passing by. Today, those students, while still smoking, where in clusters around one or two of the smokers, who were holding newspapers. And they all stared at Mia as she walked into the school.

 

_Daa-dum._

 

When she went into the girl’s bathroom before class, a bunch of the girls in there that were doing their hair or makeup looked at her, started giggling, and rushed out.

_Daa-dum._

_Daa-dum._

_Josh Ritcher_ actually spoke to her. Two months of sharing the same locker bay, and him shoving his girlfriend up against Mia’s locker door to make out, and barely a single word had passed between the two of them. And today, he just looks at her as she puts her bag away and is all “How you doin’?” like he’s Joey from _Friends_ , or something.

_Daa-dum._

_Daa-dum._

_Daa-dum._

 

Mr Gianini was the first to sound the alarm. He’d been walking to the train station he took to AEHS and had passed a newsstand. Splattered all over it, the _New York Post_ , with MIA on the front page. A recent photo, actually. Probably from Monday night, when she’d had dinner with her dad and Grandmere. She’s coming down the Plaza steps, not looking at the camera – how could she be, when she didn’t know a camera was there? – kind of smiling. The headline read _Princess Amelia – New York’s Very Own Royal_.

Mr G had called her mother, twice actually, but Helen was alternately in the shower or her studio, and heard the phone neither time. So, Mr G did something that was actually pretty gutsy, for the boyfriend of Mia’s mom – he called Mia’s dad. According to him, Phillipe Renaldo flipped a table – proverbially speaking – and immediately contacted Principal Gupta to have Mia pulled from her classes and into Gupta’s office, for ‘safety’.

So here Mia is, back in the chair she’d sat in just two days before to justify pouring a can of soda on Lana Weinberger’s head. If the giant shark could please burst in and eat Mia alive right now, that’d be great, thanks.

Principal Gupta read the headline for Mia, and continued with the page 2 headline _Fairy Tale Dream Comes True For One Lucky New York Kid_ , as the reporter put it. “You might have mentioned this, Mia, when I asked you if there was anything bothering you in your home life.” Gupta said, kind of sarcastically, gazing at Mia over her glasses, probably thinking _really? THIS one is a princess?_

Mia cocked an eyebrow. She was trying not to show just how much this all rattled her. “Well, let’s face it: it sounds kind of nuts unless you’ve got the newspaper backing you up.”

“Very true,” Gupta conceded, turning back to the paper. “It is rather unbelievable.”

When her father finally arrived, it was mostly to thank Principal Gupta for . . . well, functionally ‘holding off the horde’ by keeping Mia in her office (what horde? Well, apparently, a bunch of news stations got a hold of the story and were waiting outside the school to get a picture of Mia) before Phillipe could get to the school.

Mia figured that with the whole mess, she’d get the rest of the day off school or something, but nope! Instead, she got Lars as a bodyguard. _Yippee!!_ She’s always wanted some big guy with a gun following her everywhere she went she thought _sarcastically_. And instead of getting the rest of the day of school, if only because that was as long as her peers’ attention spans could last, and tomorrow they definitely wouldn’t care; Mia instead got to continue the rest of her school day as per normal, as long as she could ignore the stares and the bodyguard and the growing mob of reporters outside the school.

Sure. Totally normal day.

 

;

 

The One sole upside to this hell-day was the fact that her detention had been cancelled – apparently, having reporters conduct a turf war over who can take a photo of you first is the equivalent of sitting silently in a room for an hour five days in a row. At least in terms of emotional strain, anyway.

The Approximately Ninety-Nine downsides started kicking in at lunch when, no joke, Lana Weinberger came up to Mia and Tina as they were ordering food and invited – or _ordered_ would probably be the more accurate term – Mia to sit with Lana and the Popular Table.

It took everything Mia had not to laugh in her face. Seriously?! Monday-Lana was teasing Mia over her haircut and picking on Tina, and Wednesday-Lana wants to sup her lunch next to Mia, just because a reporter decided that Mia was news-worthy?

It probably made a weird sight, for Lana, having Mia’s face all twist and her eyes to grow wide and her eyebrows to somehow rise and scrunch, but that was the effort Mia needed not to crack up in her face. “No thanks, Lana,” Mia said to the offer, “I’ve got a table to sit at.”

Tina’s eyes had been as wide as plates the entire time, and they didn’t really get smaller until the two girls sat down. Lars and Wahim each got seats a little away, for the sake of privacy – it turned out, the two of them got along rather well, given their current conversation topic, the question of whose gun had the most firepower – and Tina asked in a small voice, “Are you sure you want to sit with me?”

Mia, starting to dig into her salad, was confused. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Tina picked at her own salad – she had something of a weight problem (in her own mind. Mia thought her friend was perfectly-sized) and was dieting to try to lose the weight for the Cultural Diversity Dance. Given that it was about three days away, Tina’s goal didn’t seem likely. “I know you don’t like Lana very much, but . . . well, you could do anything, now. You’re a princess, Mia. Everyone knows it, now. You could do anything, sit anywhere, no one would say a word.”

Mia blinked at the words, but didn’t think for a second before saying, “I’m sitting exactly where I want to, Tina. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m definitely not trading my friend for someone who just wants to hang out with me because I have a fancy tiara.”

That got a smile from her friend, the tension leaving Tina’s shoulders. “Do you actually have a tiara?” she asked.

Mia thought for a second, “Yeah, probably. I can’t imagine I’d ever get to wear it outside of, like, formal functions or whatever,” she grinned at her friend, “so don’t expect me to come to school wearing one or something.”

Tina laughed around her bite of salad, “It’d be cool if you could though.”

Mia knew it was a joke, but the idea had brought back a memory, just of the summer gone by. She and Nick had been relieved of any real plans for their day, and taken the opportunity to ride Nick’s horses into the nearby town – well, not into the town, but to the farmers market that had been happening just outside it. It’d been a fun day, with the sun shining and everything smelling like popcorn and baked cakes, and Mia had bought some cakes and apples and Nick – well, it’d been a joke they’d been making, about Mia’s non-royalty-royalty status (oh, how irony has bit her in the butt), but Nick had bought Mia a little tiara made out of twisted-together gold wire and glass beads. It was a kitsch thing, purely for the aesthetic of it, but she still had it at home, sitting on her vanity.

She missed Nick. He’d be fantastic in this situation.

 

;

 

Gifted and Talented offered up a wealth of potential distractions, from being the first class post-lunch to Mia’s Algebra work (ugh), to Michael just existing, to Lilly glaring at her head the way she had all through lunch, to Boris scraping his way to Bach or whatever it was; but, because this is Mia’s life here, she got to indulge none of that, as Michael brought up the pink elephant in the room the second Mia sat down.

In fairness, it probably had something to do with Lars walking in after her and sitting down, but they all could’ve at least _pretended_ life was normal, right? But noooo.

“So, Princess of Genovia, huh?” Michael said, “Were you ever going to share that little piece of info with the group, or were we all supposed to guess?” He sounded . . . unimpressed. It got Mia’s hackles up a bit, actually. Like her royal status was really anyone’s business!

“I was kind of hoping no one would ever find out?” It came out like a question, but her point was made.

“Well, that’s obvious. I don’t see why, though. It’s not like it’s a bad thing.” Ha, Michael.

“Uh, try living it,” was Mia’s great comeback. “My life has just gotten about a hundred times more difficult.”

“Did you read the article in today’s _Post_ , Thermopalis?”

“I _was_ the article, Moscovitz. I don’t see what more I needed.”

Which was when Mia heard Lilly’s voice for real for the first time since their fight. It was like she couldn’t stand not to be involved in the conversation.

“So you’re not aware that the Crown Prince of Genovia – namely your father,” yes, well done Lilly. You’ve noted who Mia’s father is, “has a total personal worth which, including real estate property and the palace’s art collection, is estimated at over three hundred million dollars?”

It was pretty obvious Lilly read the article. Mia gave Lilly a very sarcastic look. “Yes, actually I did know that.” Or that-abouts. Jesus, three hundred million? “But those properties and art are also inherited aspects of the Genovian Royal Family estate – it’s the equivalent of a family heirloom being added onto your own personal net worth.”

Which was a sentence that stopped Lilly’s impending tirade for about two seconds before she barrelled on. “I _was_ wondering how much of that fortune was amassed by taking advantage of the sweat of the common labourer, _Amelia_ ,” Lilly said all snottily. “I suppose once you take out the land and art, that’s what? Half?”

“More like none,” Mia shot back, cutting off Michael, who’d opened his mouth to rebut Lilly, “given that the people of Genovia have traditionally never paid income or property taxes.” Thank you, Nick’s regular rants about his uncle’s desire to impose taxes on his workers and staff to grab at their money.

Michael was smiling at – nothing? And Lilly was grasping at straws of her argument. “Well. I guess at the _princess_ of the country,” she said this the way Mia imagined people during the French Revolution said ‘ _the queen_ ’, “you would be in favour of the excesses of the monarchy, but _I_ happen to think that it’s disgusting, with the world economy being what it is today, for anyone to have a total worth of three hundred million dollars – especially someone who never did a day’s work for it!”

Michael cut Lilly right off, going, “I’m sorry Lilly, but it’s my understanding that Mia’s father works extremely hard for his country. His father’s historic pledge, after Mussolini’s forces invaded in 1939, to exercise the rights of sovereignty in accordance with the political and economic interests of neighbouring France, in exchange for military and naval protection in the event of war, might have tied the hands of a lesser politician, but Mia’s father has managed to work around that agreement; and his efforts have resulted in a nation with the highest literacy rate in Europe, some of the best educational attainment rates and the lowest infant mortality, inflation and unemployment rates in the Western hemisphere.”

Okay, so those were actually statistics Mia didn’t know, but thanks Michael.

Lilly turned to her brother and said, “Shut up,” before swivelling back to Mia and sneering, “I see they already have you spouting their populist propaganda like a good little heir.”

Mia was dumbfounded at the accusation, saying, “I beg your pardon-“ but Michael cut her off, sneering right back at his little sister, “Aw, Lilly, you’re just jealous.”

“I am not!”

“Yes, you are,” Michael was smug, like he was enjoying making Lilly angry. “You’re jealous because she got her hair cut without consulting you. You’re jealous because you stopped talking to her, and she just grabbed Tina and kept on rolling. You’re jealous because all this time, Mia’s had a secret she didn’t tell you.”

Which prompted Lilly to just _scream_ , red in the face, “Michael, SHUT UP!” the volume of which caused Boris to lean out of his supply closet to ask “Lilly? Did you say something?”

Lilly just yelled at him to get back in the supply closet. She spun on Michael, demanding, “Gosh, Michael, you sure are quick to come to Mia’s defence all of a sudden. I wonder if maybe it ever occurred to you that your argument, while ostensibly based in logic, might have less intellectual than libidinous roots?”

Mia’s vocab wasn’t as great as she wished it to be, so she didn’t quite get the question, but it made Michael start to go red for some reason, provoking him to sneer, “Well, what about your persecution of the Ho’s? Is that rooted in intellectual reasoning? Or is it an example of vanity run amok?”

But before Lilly could talk back, he turned to Mia and just asked, “So does this guy-“ he pointed at Lars, who had been watching the whole debate like it was a tennis match, “have to follow you everywhere from now on?”

Mia nodded, “Yup.”

“Really? Everywhere?”

“Everywhere except the ladies room. Then he waits outside.”

Michael was incredulous. “What if you were to go on a date? Or to a school dance or something?”

Mia scoffed a bit, “Well, given that no one’s asked me, that’s a non-issue; but if I were, I imagine Lars would come with.” She shared a glance with the bodyguard – kind of hard, given that, for whatever reason, he was still wearing sunglasses indoors. Lars nodded the affirmative.

Boris leaned out of his closet again, interrupting everything. “Excuse me.” That got the attention of the whole room. Boris tended to do that, what with his deep voice and loud violin; when he spoke, people listened, if only to know exactly how fast to herd Boris into the cupboard. “I accidentally knocked over a bottle of rubber cement with my bow, and it’s getting hard to breathe. Can I come out now?”

The entire G&T class managed to scream a ‘no’ in unison, but the volume drew Mrs Hill into the classroom. “What’s all the noise for? Boris, why are you in the supply closet? Come out now. Everybody else, back to work! I need to take a closer look at that article in today’s _Post_.”

 

;

 

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** I heard the news. Congrats on being a celebrity now.

**FtLouie:** How do you know already????

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** I go to school in Genovia and our Crown Prince has just made international news with the split beans about his illegitimate heir. You’re literally all anyone is talking about here.

**FtLouie:** Ugh.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** How bad are things where you are?

**FtLouie:** Well, I’ve got a bodyguard following me wherever I go, reporters camped on my school campus, and right now my parents are arguing over who told – Mom thinks Grandmere, Dad thinks it’s my Algebra teacher because Mom’s dating him.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Does your dad have a theory on how the teacher learned of your secret?

**FtLouie:** None that I can tell.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** So he’s just bitter?

**FtLouie:**  What, that she’s dating someone not him? I guess.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Well, if I were a gambling man, my money would be on Clarisse. I’ve met her. I could see her spilling the beans.

**FtLouie:** You think? I considered it, but I’m too much of a disappointment right now. I don’t think I’m anywhere near ready for the spotlight at _Princess of Genovia_. I can barely manage to handle princess _lessons_ , nevermind being Princess in _public_.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** She’s throwing you in the deep end?

**FtLouie:** Maybe?

 

;

 

Too bad Nick wasn’t a gambling man, because he would’ve cleared the sweepstakes. Or whatever the saying was.

Grandmere was the tattle-tale.

Phillipe and Helen were furious. Come to think of it, so was Mia. Thursday’s Princess Lesson was supposed to be dinner, so that Grandmere could lecture her some more on her dining etiquette, but before they left the Plaza – because they had to have the lesson somewhere else (?) instead of the Palm Court again – she went back upstairs for five minutes, came back down, and the moment Mia and Grandmere arrived at their eatery, the place was mobbed with cameras. Using the one clue she ever used, Mia spun on her grandmother, confronting her over her actions and giving her a pretty decent The Reason This All Sucks And I Don’t Want It speech.

She wasn’t sure how much of it got through, but there were no more cameras outside when they left, so whatever. A battle was won, not the war.

Speaking of battles, is Mia in one with the popular crowd?

Because after her rejection yesterday, Lana and Josh and the crew all apparently decided that if they couldn’t convince Mia to come to them, they’d come to her. Which meant that, instead of a lunch-table consisting of Mia and Tina talking about romance novels and TV shows, and Wahim and Lars trading stories about their mutual military friends plus firearm comparisons, the table consisted of: all four of them, plus Lana Weinberger and the five other cheerleaders that went with her everywhere, and Josh Ritcher and the five jock boys that were dating the five cheerleaders, who also went with Josh everywhere. It was very distracting, and Lana kept trying to talk to Mia about a party that was happening at some point over the weekend, after the Cultural Diversity Dance, and does Mia want to come and get wasted?

Uh, no. Alcohol holds no real interest for Mia – unless she needs it to pair with her dinner food at Miragnac; and partying around people she doesn’t know doesn’t make her feel safe. But apparently those aren’t good excuses, and therefore she is a ‘square’, which is an insult she didn’t think people ever used outside of movies set in the fifties, but apparently Josh’s friends like to imagine they’re all in one. Whatever.

The important bit is that Josh, at their lockers after lunch, decided to agree with Mia, about something she’d said about alcohol being something she’ll have with food, but not for leisure. She couldn’t quite remember by the time she went to bed, but his attention . . . it made her feel tingly. But – not quite in a way she liked? It was like when she’d walked into Michael outside the Computer Club, when Mia was still trying to be sneaky about her Princess Lessons, and all the club members stared at her. Bugs on her skin.

 

;

 

LANA AND JOSH BROKE UP!

It’s all over the school, and colour Mia impressed, but the cycle of interest in her lasted exactly as long as she expected – normally she’s wrong about that sort of thing.

But yeah, apparently, they went on a date while Mia was shouting at Grandmere in a limousine, and Josh just flatly asked her for his class ring back in between the main meal and dessert! Which – Mia’s never been dumped before, but as much as she doesn’t like Lana At All – seems pretty cold, actually. Before classes started, Mia had overheard Lana on the phone to Bergdorf’s trying to get them to take back the dress she’d bought for the Cultural Diversity Dance, despite Lana having already removed the tags; during Algebra, she hadn’t paid the slightest attention to Mr Gianini, instead taking a black marker and crossing out all the places she’d written ‘ _Mrs Josh Ritcher_ ’ on her class notebook. Again, Mia didn’t like Lana, but it hurt to watch.

 

;

 

Wow. That was completely random and unexpected. And unwelcome.

Look, Mia can put up with a lot, okay – Lilly’s tirades and condescension about Mia’s intelligence, prior to Ho-Gate anyway; Grandmere’s existence in her life; her mom forgetting to pay the power bill so everything in their house shuts off when Mia’s in the middle of a movie marathon; and she’s putting up with the whole princess nonsense now – but having someone so transparently try to use her is smacking right on a last nerve.

Like, did he actually think that she’d fall for that even a little?!

Okay, okay, so – Lana and Josh broke up, whatever. Mia doesn’t like Lana, and Josh is very pretty and yes, Mia’s been harbouring a bit of a crush on him since school started, whatever – Mia’s been harbouring a crush on Michael Moscovitz for two years, and this last summer she started to get very flustered at Nick’s blue eyes. She’s fourteen, she can have as many dumb crushes that’ll never amount to anything as she wants.

But this nonsense –

She was at her locker, putting away her Algebra book at the same time Josh was collecting his Trigonometry things, when he turned to her in a completely casual manner and said “Hey, Mia, who are you going to the dance tomorrow with?”

Mia – at the time - was shocked at Josh speaking to her, and just about choked on her tongue before getting out a “Uh, no one.”

So Josh – and here’s the really important bit, because he had this look in his eyes, like her agreement was guaranteed – says, “Well, why don’t we go together?”

Mia just kind of stared at him in silence, maybe even for a full minute.

You know how there’s that little voice in your head, like the voice of your rational brain, well, the one in Mia’s head just said, _He’s only asking you out because you’re the Princess of Genovia_.

To which the louder ‘id’ of Mia went _SO WHAT???_

And the rational-brain – her ‘superego’, we’ll say – answered with _How about we don’t date people using us for fame, huh?_

And because that was all the arguments her mind could make before her mouth caught up with her, Mia just blurted, “No. No thanks.”

And she slapped her locker closed and spun on her heel, only catching a quick glance of Josh’s face. The last time she’d seen a classmate that gobsmacked, a can of soda was being tipped on her head.

By G&T, it was all over the school. You know, Most Popular Senior Boy Gets Rejected By Our School’s New European Princess. Like it was a headline. If it somehow wasn’t leaked to the reporters still straggling on the school steps, Mia actually would’ve found herself rather surprised, honestly. It was THAT big.

Although, the reactions she was getting were rather surprising, actually. She’d been anticipating the general whisper-point-and-stares, but she was . . . actually getting admiring stares? Maybe? Not from the popular crowd, but like, the unpopular crowd? Well, people who didn’t have a high opinion of Josh Ritcher, anyway.

One of those people? Lilly Moscovitz. Although she did decide to voice her opinion in a way that just got Mia in an ‘I-didn’t-freaking-ask’ mood.

“I’m a little surprised at you, Mia. I didn’t know you had that much integrity to reject your crush.”

_Surprised at Mia’s integrity?_ Was this supposed to be an apology or an insult? Mia clenched her teeth, gritting out, “Well, I guess I’m _full_ of surprises, Lilly. You don’t know _everything_ about me.”

Lilly’s reaction was – her eyes softened, maybe? Like she didn’t mean her barb the way Mia took it? – and she just said, in a tone far less confrontational, “I guess not.”

Michael was mostly the same as ever as he talked her through her Algebra work, but his air was one of satisfaction. Like something had happened that he felt almost-smug about.

Whatever. Mia was very decidedly Not Caring. God, she was ready for the weekend. Yes, she wasn’t going to the school dance, but that wasn’t exactly a special thing – generally, a third or a half of the student population didn’t bother going to any of the school dances; the Winter Dance was in a few months, Mia could go to that one, if she wanted. Grandmere had given a promise of No Princess Lessons for the weekend, and Mia wanted to spend it doing exactly NOTHING stressful. She’d had enough stress this week.

 

;

 

That night, Mia was actually home in time for some dinner, actually. Grandmere had decided that the first week of their lessons, while not a success, _per say_ , were enough for Clarisse to want to have half an evening off.

Every two weeks on Friday nights, her mother had a Ladies Poker Night, and it was a refreshing change – none of them seemed to care all that much about the Princess thing, except for some minor questions Mia didn’t mind answering. They’d all been around Mia since she was a baby, so while it was new and surprising information, it wasn’t really very important. Their attitude made Mia feel very grateful that, if nothing else, her mom’s friends were always around to ignore Mia’s stresses and just make some jokes she could laugh at.

Mia took her small personal pizza – vegetarian, because her mom had happily added to the dinner order when Mia got home early for the first time all week – and cuddled up on her bed with Fat Louie to watch her small bedroom TV. Lilly’s show, _Lilly Tells It Like It Is_ , was the owner of a regular Friday night spot, airing in-between the show about biker-gang members teaching people how to cook over an exhaust flame or in a flaming garbage can, and the show dedicated to finding the weirdest hole-in-the-wall shops in New York. Cable access channels tended to have weird things airing, because if you threw enough money at the station managers, then you got to be on TV.

Anyway, Lilly’s show was dedicated to the Ho’s boycott, which had been called off that day due to the lack of interest by their classmates. It’d been coming on all week – the Asian American students had started shopping exclusively at the Ho’s, because if they got a five-cent discount, why not take advantage? And the school smokers didn’t honour the boycott, because it was the only place close enough that they could go to and get more cigarettes in the middle of the school day; and since all the popular kids at their school smoked en-masse, the boycott had had trouble getting momentum.

Instead, the episode ended with Lilly sitting on her bed, probably filmed the night before. She gave a speech about how racism is a powerful force of evil that all people must work to combat. Even though to some, paying five cents more for a bag of potato chips might not seem like much, victims of real racism and prejudice would recognise that five cents was only the first step in the road to genocide. Lilly went on to say that because of her stand against the Ho’s, there was a little bit more justice on the side of right today.

Mia still wasn’t in favour of Lilly’s actions, and she still found it all rather absurd, given the moral soapbox Lilly had been standing on for the whole duration, but Lilly’s speech did hit a nerve in her. For all that Lilly could be difficult; she was charismatic and a magnet for interesting things, and she was _trying_ to make the world a better place. Mia missed her.

 

;

 

Mr Gianini came over to the Loft around lunchtime the next day, and he was actually proving to be Mia’s favourite of her mother’s boyfriends in recent memory. He didn’t seem to care about sports very much, he had little wry jokes all the time that made her snicker, and given that he came in while Mia was working on some homework, he gave her Algebra stuff a quick look-over and – while not saying anything about the score she’d get back for it – told Mia she was improving a lot.

Mia swore she could _feel_ her mom’s happy smile behind her.

Overall, everything was exactly as dull as she’d wished, right up until Sunday morning, when Tina called to invite Mia to join her and Dave and their friends for Chinese food and descriptions of the dance the night before. So, taking an extra twenty minutes out of the commute time to get Lars to come around, Mia got to Tina’s apartment – her parents were out for the day, taking Tina’s younger siblings with them – and she was rather surprised to see, instead of Tina’s boyfriend Dave Farouq El-Abar, _Lilly_ was the other person at the apartment.

Turns out, Tina was rather tired of Lilly and Mia’s silent treatment of each other – a stance Tina only had because she didn’t have Gifted and Talented as a class – and was demanding that they talk things out. A peaceful reconciliation would be rewarded with Chinese food.

Mia just kind of stared down at Lilly from her height above. They were in Tina’s living room, and Lilly looked about as ashamed of herself as she ever did when she knew she was in the wrong – which wasn’t often, but Lilly, despite all interactions might suggest, actually hated being scolded. She could handle arguments with the deft touch of a true journalist, but actually being called out when she was in the wrong was not when Lilly was at her most graceful.

And graceful Lilly wasn’t, as she gently talked about how she was sorry for making fun of Mia’s hair, and that she understood how controlling she could be, and that her parents had theories that she had something of a borderline authoritarian personality disorder, and that she promised to make a concentrated effort to stop telling everyone, especially Mia, what to do.

Overall, it wasn’t a perfect apology, or reconciliation, but Mia, Lilly and Tina ended spent the afternoon marathon-ing the TV show _Charmed_ and gorging themselves on Chinese take-out and ice cream, so Mia was counting everything as a Win.

 

;

 

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** So, the most popular boy in school dumps his girlfriend, who you don’t like, and asks you to the school dance you want to go to, and you turn him down flat? Is that the plotline here?

**FtLouie:** Yep. I like to think integrity and basic human decency – as well as not giving in to people who only want me for my new crown – is more important than having a boyfriend.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Well, it’s an argument I can agree with and stand alongside. Are you happy with how this has all turned out so far?

**FtLouie:** I think it’s a still a bit too early to tell, but, yeah, actually. I’m choosing to be optimistic.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Good.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Whatever comes,” she said, “cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.” -- Francis Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess.
> 
> So this is all of it. Like I said, canon divergence.  
> A rewrite of the other books is something I'm toying around with - I DO intend to do it someday, but I've got other stories I want to finish first.   
> Yes, those other rewrites will have more Nick in them. It's the whole point of this series.


End file.
